Rites of Spring (Break) il-3

by Diana Peterfreund

  “They aren’t going to kill her,” Angel said. “They have expulsion to think of, too, you know.”

  Some comfort. Over dinner, we discussed the parley offer with the rest of the club, and it was agreed upon (rather quickly, in my opinion, so conversation could turn back to Gehry’s political and legal troubles) that Angel was right. I should follow the instructions on the note, despite the risk.

  “Think of it this way,” Angel argued, “if they wanted to ‘get’ you, they’ve been doing a bang-up job of it without arranging it with you in advance. If they’re bothering to send a letter saying they want to parley, maybe they really mean it.”

  “Or maybe that’s what they want you to think,” Thorndike pointed out.

  Finally, we decided I’d go, with a small contingent of Diggers waiting for me outside the library, and my finger poised over the Send button on Jenny’s Push-to-Talk cell in case things got hairy.

  At fifteen minutes to midnight, I left the tomb and began walking to the library. It was raining, the type of wintry, New Haven downpour that seems to come at you from all sides, thwapping at you with clammy bursts of wind and making every step away from shelter seem like a futile, if not downright insane, gesture. But I soldiered on and eventually made it across the campus to the steps of the library. The timing of this part of the journey was very important, since the library closed at midnight and they stopped letting patrons enter at quarter-till.

  I made my way through the front door and into the splendid, Gothic-cathedral entrance hall. With the security guard and the research-desk employees looking on, I tried to casually gravitate toward the West Reading Room, which had, among its many desks, wingback chairs, and private nooks, a fire entrance to the central courtyard that was often propped open when the building’s ancient heating system threatened to turn the Stacks into a sauna.

  Tonight I was lucky. I sat and waited, wondering in turn how many of the library’s remaining visitors were Dragon’s Head spies and if a security guard would be along presently to kick me out.

  At 11:58, I stepped outside into the cold rain, which felt that much worse after the dry heat of the Reading Room. As the golden light faded into blue-gray darkness, I strained my eyes to determine if there were any people waiting in the courtyard, but the only things I could see were stone carvings of grimacing gargoyles, winter-dead trees, and piles of grayish ice. I kept my gloved hand in my coat pocket, ready to press the button on the phone.

  And I waited. And waited. It seemed much longer than 120 seconds before I heard the distant chimes from the clock tower. Midnight.

  On my left, I saw a shadow move. It drew closer to me, but all I could make out was a vaguely human shape. Still ten yards away, the figure stopped and sat on one of the stone benches. It raised a hand and beckoned to me. I stepped forward, and as I did, the figure’s features came into focus.

  Felicity.

  6. Sweet Defeat

  “Oh, come closer,” Felicity said, as I struggled to breathe. “It doesn’t count unless we talk.”

  “What…are…” Get ahold of yourself, Amy. “What are you doing here?”

  “I’m here to parley, of course.” Her tone was perfectly calm, perfectly kind. Perfectly perfect. I knew this unflappable socialite charm, had seen it at work in Clarissa—had hated it in Clarissa, long before I ever grew to hate it in Brandon’s girlfriend. “As I assume you are.”

  “I’m here to parley with Dragon’s Head,” I replied.

  She smiled and flashed me her pin. “Well, I’m in Dragon’s Head, but I’m here to parley with you, Amy Haskel.”

  My name on her lips was a curse, the opposite of everything Brandon made it sound like. I swallowed my disbelief. “This never had anything to do with that raid.”

  “Of course it did,” she said. She patted the seat beside her. “Come sit next to me. We’re protected from the rain by the eaves.”

  “I’ll stand, thanks,” I said, though my teeth were starting to chatter as the water seeped under my collar.

  “Suit yourself.” She took a deep breath. “Here’s the deal, and don’t think it was an easy one for me to concoct. The members of my society will henceforth cease and desist from their personal campaign against you. And in return…” she paused. “…you will never see my boyfriend again.”

  “I’ll what?” I cried. “You’ve got to be kidding me. I don’t agree to that!”

  Felicity’s beautiful brow furrowed. “I’m sorry, perhaps my letter was a tad unclear. You don’t have to agree to anything. I made this deal with Brandon.”

  I stood there, dumbstruck, wishing I had a bench to fall onto.

  “You see, Amy, my boyfriend, for reasons passing understanding, took umbrage at the fact that we were, shall we say, persuading you to return our property.” She paused. “You wouldn’t be interested in doing that now, would you?”

  “Over my dead body,” I hissed.

  She sighed. “At any rate, my boyfriend had this crazy theory that I, as the director of our little campaign of persuasion, had some sort of personal stake in the matter, above and beyond the usual society feud. Barbarians and their strange ideas! Of course, you and I know that’s silly.”

  I personally didn’t know anything of the sort. “Your campaign, as you call it, was a bit out of the mainstream.”

  “As is everything about your club,” Felicity replied. “My boyfriend was under the impression that I had used his inexplicable lingering fascination with you to discover your schedule, habits, and even brand of shampoo.”

  “Which you did.”

  “Don’t you find it odd that anyone would remember someone’s favorite brand of cheap, drugstore shampoo?” Felicity’s smile remained sanguine, and my hands fisted inside the pockets of my coat. “And I don’t even know my own roommate’s class schedules.”

  “Brandon must really care about me,” I shot back.

  Here, her smile grew wide. “My boyfriend is a kind person.” She kept saying that phrase, my boyfriend. She must have known how much it needled me. “And I really care about him. I love him. I love him ever so much more than I love some silly feud between two college clubs. I care about him so much more than I care about some silly college secret society.” She paused. “I don’t know if anyone else could say that.”

  The little bitch. Brandon had apparently told her everything about our breakup last year. She’d never needed the shoes to identify me. She’d always known I was in Rose & Grave. And she also knew I’d chosen it over Brandon.

  “And it was surprisingly easy to convince my boyfriend of that fact. For him to give you up, I just had to promise that I would as well. Which I have.”

  “Your society won’t accept that!” I said.

  “Oh, we aren’t letting go of the feud, or of our statue. The Diggers are going down, mark my words. We just won’t be after you—specifically—anymore.”

  Frustration and rage bubbled inside me, cutting off rational thought, any argument. “I don’t understand! If this was a decision made between you and Brandon, why this whole parley charade? Why drag me out here in the rain?” I mean, aside from the obvious pleasure of watching me look like a drowned rat.

  “How else would you know?” she asked simply. “How else would you know that I won, and how I won, and how, now that I’ve chosen him over my society, Brandon loves me even more than he did before?” She rose. “Have a good night, Amy. I hope you get in safe from the storm.” She brushed past me, and it took all my self-restraint not to pummel her into the mud. Girls like Felicity probably had years of kickboxing or Krav Maga training anyway. “Oh, and if I were you or any of the other Diggers, I’d be watching my back.”

  ***

  I stood there for way too long after Felicity left, not from any desire to savor the New Haven climate. I just didn’t know what to do next.

  Where do you go when everyone you know owes you a big fat I told you so? Where do you hide on a night so wretched that even Dickens wouldn’t have chosen it to i
llustrate his character’s desperation? Where do you run to the moment you realize that your SAT scores were a lie, your transcript obviously faked, your faculty recommendations the apparent result of a parental bribe, your acceptance letter from Eli University clearly some sort of cosmic joke, because there is no way that anyone in their right mind would mistake you for someone smart?

  Someone with operational gray matter would never have let this happen to her. Someone with the intelligence of your average housefly would have put two and two together when Brandon had IM-ed her about “society nonsense.” Someone who had spent a moment examining her history, her experiences, or even the rational order of the universe would have noted at least one of the following:

  1) Mr. Let’s-Define-Our-Relationship Weare had never professed any interest in discussing what we were really doing in our stolen afternoons.

  2) The fact that after he told me he was going to make a decision, he never called again. Hello, clue phone.

  3) Or how about the simple truth that when someone has the choice of the beautiful, polished, rich girl who has never broken his heart—the girl who would forgive his transgressions, would sacrifice her position in her society to make him happy—or the girl like me, it’s a no-brainer. Whatever else I might be tempted to say about Brandon at this moment, I’d never insult his intelligence.

  Where do you go when this is made obvious to you? Other than back to Ohio? Part of me wondered if it was too late to book a flight. I wanted to be far, far from campus right now. I wanted to climb into my dad’s lap and hug my mom and act like I was still a teenager, instead of an adult who should have so known better. I wanted to hide, to flee, to pretend that I’d never even heard of Connecticut, let alone chosen it as a setting for such a humiliation. How could he love her more?

  One thing was certain, I could not go back to my fellow knights yet. They were waiting for me just outside the library, but there was no way I could face anyone in my current state. There would be plenty of time to explain Dragon’s Head’s new strategy—after I dealt with my own state of mind. I pulled my coat’s hood low over my face and rushed back inside the Reading Room. Out in the main hall, I turned right, toward the back, rather than toward the front entrance. There was a back way out, near the law school.

  A security guard stopped me. “Library’s closed, miss,” but as soon as he saw my face, his expression softened.

  “I just want…” I gasped. “The back door.”

  “Closed after midnight.”

  “I just want to leave. I don’t have anything to check out…just…”

  The guard relented and I rushed by him, practically sprinting on my way out the back. I shoved hard on the door and burst through into the cold alleyway beyond. I plopped against the nearest wall, heedless of the rain as it mixed with tears on my face. Great wracking sobs seemed to echo around the empty street, bouncing off stone walls and cobblestones. Yeah, there was no way I’d do this in front of the other knights. I imagined the patriarchs that had come before me weeping dignified tears over a lost comrade in war, or the death of a brother or a spouse. I couldn’t see them acting so stupid. No, this kind of behavior would be reserved for the Bugaboo of the group.

  “Why?” I said to the buildings around me.

  How could I question his choice? Maybe it was best. For if I did love him, if I really did, wouldn’t I have fought for him long before this? Wouldn’t I have fought for him when we tried dating last spring, or when I saw him again this fall, or even the first time he told me he still cared about me? Wouldn’t I have told him to stay with me that night, to really be with me, to tell Felicity right away that they were through for good?

  If I’d really loved him, then I would have done what Felicity had. I would have picked him over Rose & Grave, I’d have put him first last spring, have shared my troubles with him rather than with the society brothers I’d only just met. I’d have called him back this fall instead of getting caught up in yet another society drama. I’d have run to him from the first moments of Dragon’s Head’s “little campaign of persuasion.” Wouldn’t I?

  Eventually the tears dried, but I spent several long minutes just standing there, slumped, catching my breath, adjusting to this new reality, the one where I’d again added to my seemingly endless list of romantic mistakes. Chalk another one up, Amy. Not only are you crap at having a boyfriend, crap at having a one-night stand, and crap at having a no-strings-attached fling, you’re also crap at being the other woman. Pack it up, go home, commit to celibacy. You’re one hundred percent, unequivocally awful at being with a man.

  I took a deep breath. There. Fine. Now you know. I looked up.

  And saw Poe standing in the doorway across the street. I could make out little more than a glint of his gray eyes, the line of his jaw, his sharp cheekbones in his thin face, but still, I recognized him. His defiant stance, arms crossed over the chest of his worn wool jacket. I knew that pose. It was like the first time we’d met, when he’d interrogated me. Only worse, because here I was, as raw as hamburger, ready to crumble. My eyes began to burn, but whether it was a fresh batch of tears or suppressed rage, I couldn’t tell.

  Why was he here? Why was he always, always, always around? Didn’t he have a life? Didn’t he have anything better to do?

  “I take it the parley went poorly?” he asked, coming toward me.

  “What are you doing here!” I snapped.

  He rolled his eyes. “Amy, there are two exits to the library. I guessed—and rightly so—that your club would forget that, and I wanted to make sure there was no funny business on this side.”

  “How did you even know this was going on?” I resisted the urge to run a hand across my no-doubt snotty nose.

  “I have friends in the tomb.” Of course. He and Hale had always been buddy-buddy. He held out a small white square. A handkerchief. When I took it, he added, “I thought I’d only get involved if they tried something.”

  “Otherwise you’d just sit here and spy?” I swiped at my face with the handkerchief. Of all the people to catch me at my most vulnerable, why the hell did it have to be Poe?

  “I was afraid to interrupt you by moving. Seemed the lesser of two evils.” He stood there for a moment, hands in pockets.

  “The greater being?”

  “Leaving you here alone.”

  “Well, you can go now,” I said, then realized how ungrateful that sounded. Even if he’d been sneaking around.

  “That’s the thing. I can’t.” Hands still in pockets, eyes still downcast. “Malcolm would probably kill me if I didn’t, um, see to his little sib in her time of need.”

  “Then don’t tell him.” Malcolm was in Alaska and hadn’t written me in a month. So much for big-sib solicitation.

  “And then there’s that whole pesky oath of constancy I took. I’m supposed to stand by you.”

  “You would think of that.”

  He looked up, met my eyes with his serious, gray stare. “So would you, Amy.”

  What a time to remind me. I hated my society oaths in this moment. I felt fresh tears and made use of the handkerchief again. I sensed his hand on my shoulder, and suddenly we were crossing the street to the alcove at the law school, and sitting on a sheltered bench, and he was…patting me, or something, landing awkward little strokes along my upper arm that were no doubt meant to be comforting.

  “Calm down,” Poe said. “The parley was supposed to make things better. What did they say?”

  “That it’s over,” I sniffed.

  “In exchange for what?”

  I shook my head in misery. “Nothing.”

  “That’s not true.” He peered at me through the shadows. “What did you have to give them?”

  “Nothing!” I repeated. “They got what they wanted without my help.”

  “They found the statue?”

  “No. It had nothing to do with the statue.” I hung my head. “You’ll be happy to know that I’ve been acting like the brain donor you always say I am
.”

  “I don’t think you’re stupid,” he said. “A troublemaker, yes, but that’s different.” He let his arm drop to his side.

  Well, I’d been causing trouble for Brandon and Felicity, that was for sure.

  Poe cleared his throat. “Am I better off not knowing?”

  Everyone in the world was. It was too humiliating. “Yes.”

  “Those attacks were…personal.”

  “Yes.”

  “I thought as much. It’s not the usual society feud M.O. Was it an academic or romantic rival?”

  Right. Because it was always school or love for an Eli student. Were our troubles as simple as that? I took a deep breath. “I thought I was heading toward something important with this guy, and I was wrong, and Dragon’s Head used it to get to me. That’s all.” It was enough.

  “George?” The word exploded out of his mouth.

  “Does everyone know about that?” Guess it was silly of George to think that leaving it out of the C.B. would accomplish anything.

  “We didn’t become Diggers due to a lack of perception, Amy.”

  “Well, you aren’t experts, either. That’s been over for months.” And while it had been going on, I knew exactly what I’d been doing. My heart stayed clear of entanglements with Eli’s most notorious playboy. No, when I decided to get my heart broken, I took the road less traveled.

  “Oh,” Poe said. “Forgive me if I’ve failed to keep up with the latest in your love life.”

  “No one asked you to,” I snapped, then instantly regretted it. He’d been attempting a wee bit of civility, which was pretty much a miracle when it came to Poe. I shouldn’t wreck it. “Sorry,” I said. “I’m a little sensitive at the moment.”

  “At the moment?”

  I bit my tongue. “It’s just been demonstrated to me, yet again, that I’m doomed when it comes to romance. I’ve got to prepare for a life alone.”

  Poe took a deep breath. “Listen, I have severe doubts that this is any of my business, but in the interest of fulfilling my duty, can I give you some advice?”